fbpx

The Dybbuk

The Dybbuk, regarded as the classic drama of the Yiddish stage, has long frightened yet fascinated audiences throughout the world. Based on Jewish folklore, its dark implications of mysterious, other-worldly forces at work in a quaint and simple village make for gripping, suspenseful theater. To the Chassidic Jews of eastern Europe, a dybbuk was not a legend or a myth; rather it remained a constant and portentous possibility. During that age of pervasive mysticism, when rabbis became miracle workers and the sinister arts of the Kabbala were fearsomely invoked, it was never doubted that a discontented spirit from the dead could cross the barrier between the “real” and the “other” worlds to enter a living human body. The Dybbuk is a masterful play, full of deep-rooted obsessions and dramatic suspense, fascinating for the glimpse it provides of the rich, poetic, and often tragic culture of the Chassidim. In this classic translation by Henry Alsberg and Winifred Katzin, the authentic cadences of the original Yiddish are deftly preserved.
Read More

U.S. Drag

Two young women in Manhattan seek love and happiness, but they ll settle for rent money. Along the way, they volunteer for a community advocacy group called SAFE ("Stay Away From Ed") named for an elusive serial attacker terrorizing the city. (There s a hefty reward for his capture ) Their new circle of "friends" includes their ruthless, socially stunted roommate; the celebrated author of a fictional memoir; a lonely man who feels a kinship with crime victims; and a mousy "Ed survivor," reveling in her fifteen minutes of dubious fame. Everybody is looking for salvation in the arms of another in a group where no one has very much to give. And who is this "Ed" anyway? No one s ever seen his face, and everyone onstage is beginning to act eerily "Ed-like".
Read More

An Enemy of the People

In An Enemy of the People, Ibsen places his main characters, Dr. Thomas Stockman, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the physician learns that the famous and financially successful baths in his hometown are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs. For his honesty, he is persecuted, ridiculed, and declared an "enemy of the people" by the townspeople, included some who have been his closest allies.
Read More

The Potting Shed

The patriarch of the family is dying and James, his estranged son, appears unexpectedly. He can remember nothing about a mysterious moment that occurred in the family's potting shed when he was 14-years-old. Family members who recall the event are unwilling to describe it to him. With the help of a psychoanalyst, James tries to recall just what happened that day that left him rejected by his father, alienated from his family, and alone in the world.
Read More

Den of Thieves

Maggie is a newly single, junk-food-binging shoplifter looking to change her life and her self-hating ways. Paul is her passionately convicted, formerly four-hundred-pound compulsive-overeating sponsor in a twelve-step program for recovering thieves. Maggie's jealous ex-boyfriend is a charismatic wannabe Puerto Rican small-time thief of uncertain ancestry named Flaco who spins a grammatically challenged but persuasive yarn about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in unprotected drug money sitting in a safe in a downtown disco guarded by an easily distracted crackhead. This dubious and ragtag would-be criminal crew is rounded out by Flaco's new girlfriend, the fabulous Boochie—a malaprop-slinging topless dancer who refuses to let her troubled childhood or her third-grade reading level stand in the way of her inevitable path to fame, fortune and fur. When things don't quite go according to plan, this bickering quartet of hapless thieves finds themselves at the mercy of Louie "The Little Tuna" Pescatore, a reluctant, donut-ingesting heir to the criminal empire run by his father—"The Big Tuna"—who has left him in charge for the weekend. The penalty for stealing from the Tuna is death—"Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Boom." But Louie offers them a break: "I need one body and three thumbs, you can choose the who, whys and wherefores among yourselves." Tied to chairs and able to move only their mouths, they must now fight for their lives by out-arguing each other as to who deserves to live. Verbal gymnastics and the struggle for self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-love produce a high-octane battle for survival that's not resolved until the last donut falls.
Read More

After the Revolution

The brilliant, promising Emma Joseph proudly carries the torch of her family's Marxist tradition, devoting her life to the memory of her blacklisted grandfather. But when history reveals a shocking truth about the man himself, the entire family is forced to confront questions of honesty and allegiance they thought had been resolved. AFTER THE REVOLUTION is a bold and moving portrait of an American family, thrown into an intergenerational tailspin, forced to reconcile a thorny and delicate legacy.
Read More

Thom Pain (based on nothing)

He's just like you, except worse. He is trying to save his life, to save your life—in that order. In his quest for salvation, he'll stop at nothing, be distracted by nothing, except maybe a piece of lint, or the woman in the second row.
Read More

Exit the King

An absurdist masterpiece in the Touchstone Theatre. A fading ruler at the helm of a world in decline, King Berenger is having some trouble accepting his fate. His first wife, Marguerite, is intent on forcing him to face his mortality, while his second wife, Marie, wants to shield him from the bad news.
Read More

Unnecessary Farce

Two cops. Three crooks. Eight doors. Go. In a cheap motel room, an embezzling mayor is supposed to meet with his female accountant, while in the room next-door, two undercover cops wait to catch the meeting on videotape. But there's some confusion as to who's in which room, who's being videotaped, who's taken the money, who's hired a hit man, and why the accountant keeps taking off her clothes.
Read More

Singular Male Voices

Peter Harness’ Mongoose: “A darkly charming fairytale.”—The Times (London). Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas: “About a boozy, rancorous Irish theatre critic who finds himself working for a group of vampires . . . wholly compelling.”—Sunday Telegraph. Ronan O’Donnell’s Brazil: “Like Mark O’Rowe and Enda Walsh, the Scottish O’Donnell has an ear for dialect—intoxicated writing larded with cynicism.”—The Times(London)
Read More

The Taming of the Shrew

Renowned as Shakespeare's most boisterous comedy, The Taming of the Shrew is the tale of two young men, the hopeful Lucentio and the worldly Petruchio, and the two sisters they meet in Padua. Lucentio falls in love with Bianca, the apparently ideal younger daughter of the wealthy Baptista Minola. But before they can marry, Bianca's formidable elder sister, Katherine, must be wed. Petruchio, interested only in the huge dowry, arranges to marry Katherine -against her will- and enters into a battle of the sexes that has endured as one of Shakespeare's most enjoyable works.
Read More
  • Category

  • Genre